Breaking Down the Barrier
by Scribblers Burrow
Summary: They came. They killed. They took prisoners. They didn't expect the humans to fight back. They were wrong. Now on a different world, Annabelle Lennox must fight for the freedom of her rase.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers.

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**Braking Down the Barrier **

Prologue

How can you live, when no one is letting you?

Life in a cage is not a life; it's not _living._ When we are young, our parents tell us that we can be anything we want to be. They tell us to get our asses off the couch and go outside.

Live life to the fullest, because you never know when it's going to get taken away.

That is something Will Lennox always told his daughter. He never knew when his life was going to end, but he knew that he was alive, at that moment in time he was there, and he had to take advantage of that.

But what do you do when that freedom is taken away from you? How do you go on? Is life really worth living in a cage? Bound to another living being that doesn't understand you; that doesn't think you understand it or even life itself.

They think the little creatures don't know things. They think they are incapable of understanding, of learning, of knowing that there is something better out there, that they are missing out on life. But they are wrong.

The little creatures understand perfectly. They know that they are being wronged. And it's only a matter of time, before they strike back.

Because you see, the little bipedal species, as small as they may be, are smart. They are crafty. They are greedy. They are violent. They want what they want, and they will do anything to get it. And above all, they are fiercely loyal to those they care about. If someone tries to harm one they care for, God help the poor soul who angered them.

They will be rough, they will be tough, and they will not be merciful. They will not show compassion. They will not have a second thought. Because once they decide to destroy something, they will not stop, until they are on top.

Sometimes after the fact; some may try mercy on for size. Few may have second thoughts. Small groups my form for compassion. But it is always too late. The damage is done.  
There is but a small glimmer of hope among a raging fireball of grudges.

These small creatures are not meant for cages, because they will fight back. They are the Human race. Small, young, and riddled with faults, but they are a force to be reckoned with.

So be warned Cybertron. Your days are numbered. For when you took your first human, you may have gotten away, but as more disappeared, one by one, their numbers among you only growing in size, you walked into a trap.

Like the calm before the storm, so unsuspecting it's victims are, until it hits, full force. Waves of sheer determined hatred will come crashing down. Escape is impossible. Nothing will survive.

So you may think it is fun, keeping these humans caged, but you just wait; wait until it's too late.

Your days are numbered, and the humans are counting down. It won't be long, before you are all brought down.

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A/N: So this is the prologue of my new transformers fanfiction, Braking Down the Barrier. It will be staring Annabelle Lennox, along with some other cannon characters from the movie and from other TF series.

~Mel~


	2. Over before it starts

Chapter 1

She laid waiting in silence. The only sound that could be heard was the leaves gently rustling in the soft breeze.

The crunching of leaves sounded in her ear. He was nearby. She crouched lower in the bush she was hiding in, careful not to brush too much against the branches. He stopped; she could just make out his figure through the tiny gaps in between the green leaves. She slowed her breathing, waiting for him to move on.

He didn't move. She kept on waiting for what seemed like minutes. It couldn't be that long though; had to be a minute tops. Why wasn't he leaving? He couldn't have spotted her, could he? She was covered in camouflage from head to toe. Even her long brown hair was bunched into her hat.

She contemplated jumping him right then and there. She didn't have to though, because at that moment she chose to movie on. He was right beyond the bush, when she chose to strike. She shot out like lightning and shot him in the back.

He went down loudly, with a cry that was sure to alert others to their location.

Quickly, she took off for the main base. If she could just get there, then she would stand a chance at taking out the rest of the team. There were only two left, and one of her, so the odds weren't that bad.

She made it, and quickly climbed up the ladder at the back. She was sure she was followed. As she took position by a window, she saw movement that was far too close to her position. She held her gun at the ready.

She took a shot when she one of the targets came out. She smiled as she hit her mark. Just one more to go.

The last one was far too close. Lining up, she took a shot. She missed; and now she was out of ammunition. Crap.

He seemed to know it too, creeping closer and closer. He would be on her soon. Almost there, then it would be all over. Just when he was almost at the ladder, the whistle sounded. Game over.

Annabelle Lennox jumped up with her paintball gun raised in the air, happy about her victory.

"Damn it! I almost had you, too."

Annabelle looked over at the ladder, seeing her adversary and good friend Frank Epps leaning on the edge whilst standing on the ladder.

"Yeah, well, better luck next time! Besides, I'm the best, and everyone knows it, I've got an image to maintain. Everyone expects you to lose though, so it's okay," she teased lightly.

She climbed down the ladder, and they both made their way out of the hunting ground.

"If it makes you feel any better, Mac came pretty close to catching me. He was standing right in front of the bush I was hiding in and he didn't even see me."

"Hey! I wear glasses, it's not my fault I sometimes can't see clearly," yelled the disgruntled man she had shot earlier.

Annabelle shook her head. "You're in the army. If you couldn't see with your glasses on, then you wouldn't have been let in. Don't try making excuses," she said as she walked past him and slapped him on the side of the head.

"Oww, hey, not all of us can make it by because we're the prodigy of our great military dads," Mac complained.

Annabelle rolled her eyes at her comrade in arms. He was joking, and their whole squadron knew it. It was a joke that they often teased her with, saying that the only reason she was in the military and had such high respect from so many was because she was the daughter of the great Brigadier General William Lennox.

"Hey, the only way ahead this girl got through her father was inheriting his kick puny boys like you's asses," said Roxy Bangers.

Annabelle didn't even bother to correct her on her horrendous language skills. It had, according to the light brown skin girl, brought out her '_puck ass'_ attitude.

Annabelle sped up as Roxy and Mac started arguing, and exchanging insults. The 19 year old girl had been put on their squad just 3 months ago and had already learned how to grind everyone's gears. The funny thing was that the smart ass had learned quickly when to keep her mouth shut when the superiors were around, and to shoot it off when she could get away with it.

One of the other members, Bradley, broke up the little tiff by running past Roxy and grabbing her short brown hair along the way; succeeding in ruffling it and flipping her hat off her head.

The girl growled, grabbed her hat, and took off after Brad.

Annabelle just smiled and made her way over to the van. She jumped into the driver's seat before anyone could protest. The rest of the group had to pile into the back because Roxy was quick to hop into the passenger seat after she saw the older woman opening the driver's door.

"You snooze you lose," she told the boys, sticking her tongue out at them.

"Roxy, if you do that again, I might have to put you in the back. The law says that children have to ride the back. Safety reasons."

Roxy glared at Annabelle before flipping her off.

The rest of the drive went by uneventful, well, as uneventful as it could get with Roxy in it.

They finally made it to the base, where they all split off to go about their business. Annabelle walked off to find out the schedule for their next batch of combat training.

Suddenly her Microputor started vibrating. She held up her hand, palm facing her, and the tiny piece of technology sown into the front of her clothes projected an image onto her hand. She tapped the part of her hand that the talk button was projected on. The com in her ear started up and she heard her father's voice.

"Lieutenant Lennox, get your team together, quickly. An attack is in progress." It was her father. He wouldn't call her by her first name on duty.

"Yes sir."

She didn't need clarification on what he meant. It had been happening for a year now. At first it had started off small. A few people going missing here and there. Unsolvable cases in the books; nothing unusual about that. But then the first real sighting happened. There were too many witnesses to think they were joking, too much destruction, too much death, and too many people taken.

The Government had no choice but to acknowledge the threat. Aliens were real. They were big, they were terrifying, and they did not come in peace.

* * *

They had been training for this for months. They had been a specially selected team specifically chosen to be the first to carry out this mission. A few new additions had been made, but Annabelle's team consisted of only the best.

This was the first time they would meet the invaders. This was the first time they would face those hugely terrifying machines. They didn't come in large groups, usually only one or two, three at the most. They probably figured that that was all they needed. Well they were about to get a wakeup call.

Or so Annabelle thought.

The driver knew exactly where to go, not that it was very hard to find. A few giant robots raging around on highway was kind of hard to miss.

By the time they got there, the monsters had already collected a number of people, destroyed a great many cars, and killed even more citizens.

They had brought as many tanks as they could get there, and the Air Force was already firing on them. The machines shot them out of the sky one by one. There were three of them. The one closest to Annabelle's team looked around and saw them. It immediately started firing on them.

The soldiers scattered as the ground exploded around them. Annabelle dove behind some crumpled cars.

"Baker! Baker, do you copy? Baker! Anthony, come in! Epps! Do you copy? Fred! Jordan! Carlin, Mac, Brad, Roxy!"

All she got was static. The dumb metal fuckers were messing with their signals.

Annabelle cursed as she looked around the car she was hiding behind. There was only one Air Force plane left, and all the robots were still standing. The last plane went down, and the robots started towards them. She pulled her head back into her hiding spot and looked to the side.

Some of her men were lying dead beside the flaming vehicles. She felt the ground vibrate as the robots drew nearer. She took a deep calming breath, and pointed her gun upwards, waiting for her attacker. She heard the gunfire of one of her comrades, and then the ground shook and she felt the shockwave travel through her body. She fell to the ground, losing her grip on her gun. She looked up at the sky and saw a giant blurry figure, with it's hand reaching down to her.

In one last ditch effort she tried to roll out of the way, but she wasn't fast enough; the hand got her. It's grip on her was hard, and her skin got pinched between the joints of it's fingers. The metal was warm from all the circuits running inside it, and it had a few chips in the metal that stuck out at jagged angles and scratched through some of her uniform.

She struggled as hard as she could, but she knew it was useless. There was no way she was strong enough to escape the powerful machine's grasp. She looked up into it's cold, unfeeling, ruby red optics, and had she been a regular civilian she wouldn't have been able to keep even a little of the self-control she had left in her.

She was then dropped into one of the cages with a bunch of other female humans. They all were cowering and crying and some were just sitting there, staring at the floor. Roxy was dropped in next. She was screaming and swearing at the robots, and the other women backed away from her. Annabelle tried to calm her down, but that only resulted in Roxy turning on her; yelling at her, telling her to do something, anything. She was their leader; she should know what to do. She should have a backup plan.

But they hadn't considered that they would need one for this sort of situation. They thought that if they failed, they would be dead, not captured as well. They should have considered this.

Suddenly the cage was lifted off of the ground. Everyone fell to the floor on top of each other. They were moved into a metal crate with all the other cages. It looked like there were four all together; two for females and two for males.

All around her, people were yelling or crying, and suddenly the Lieutenant felt overwhelmed. There was no way for her to have any control over the situation. None of them knew what to expect. They hadn't had full proper training for this sort of thing. They didn't have much information on the robots at all; only a few blurry pictures and some stories from a few survivors. How could they prepare themselves with only that?

Her only hope was that Mac had gotten away. He was their Chef Technician. If he got away, maybe he would get back with some useful information that he had gotten first hand.

Some people screamed when they were enclosed in the darkness. Transport to outer space no doubt. There weren't going to be killed; not yet, anyway. They obviously needed the humans for something. Whether it be something as harmless as study, or as horrible experimentation was left to the imagination. Annabelle hoped that they weren't like humans were with their specimens, or things could get ugly. She didn't think there was much hope though, not with what she had witnessed thus far of them.

After what seemed like ages sitting through the bumpy ride, they finally came to a stop. It felt like they were on solid ground, but Annabelle suspected it was probably not Earth ground. Light entered above them, and they were lifted out and set on the ground. They were in a large metal room. Annabelle guessed it was a storage room because it had boxes stacked along the walls. There were also other cages, full of people. Not many other cages, about five, but it was still five cages too many.

They must have been grabbed in the attack five days ago. It was why the government had decided to step it up a notch. They would lie in wait for the next attack, and then stage a counter-strike. Obviously things didn't go as planned.

She heard strange noises that sounded like they came from a computer. She looked around for the source, and discovered that it was the robots. After studying them for a second, she realised they were talking to each other. Why would they need to communicate with each other though? They were robots, they were just supposed to follow the orders that were given to them by whoever made them.

Annabelle looked around for any other signs of life. Whatever made these things was powerful, and if they wanted to take over the Earth, well they certainly had the power to do so.

She looked at the people in the cage with her. They were mostly middle age women, the oldest looked to be in her late forties. There was also a little girl there who looked about 9 years old. What looked to be her mother was clutching her desperately, trying hard not to cry. The girl had tears running down her cheeks, but she wasn't making much noise other than a few whimpers here and there. Smart girl, she knew now was not the time to draw attention to herself.

Annabelle then looked over to Roxy. The girl was pacing back and forth, running her hands through her short brown hair. Her face was constricted with agitation. She looked like she was barely keeping her cool.

"Roxy."

Nothing.

"Hey Roxy," she tried again, grabbing her by the shoulder.

"What!" she snapped. Several of the girls started, and one of the robots looked over. Roxy took a deep breath to calm herself. "What?" she said in a softer tone this time.

Annabelle nodded towards the corner of the cage. That was as much privacy as they would find. Roxy followed her over and they crouched down.

"So, what's the plan boss?"

Annabelle thought for a moment. What _was_ the plan? How could they possibly escape when they were probably on a ship in outer space right now?

"There is no plan."

"What? How can you not have a plan, there's always a plan, even if you make it up on the spot."

Annabelle sighed. "There was no plan for being captured. Didn't think we would be. Thought we would either win or be killed.

Roxy looked annoyed at that. "Even _I_ knew there was a possibility of being captured. I through that they only talked to you about that though, because it's a big thing and you're the Lieutenant."

Annabelle didn't know what to tell her. Even Roxy that thought of this, and she had been counting on Annabelle to be prepared for this. Of course she wasn't the one who decided what they did, that was up to the higher ups, but she should have thought of this, she should have mentioned it to them. She wondered if any of the guys had thought of it too.

"We're stuck, aren't we?"

It wasn't really a question. Roxy knew that there was no getting out of this, there was no escape. Had they still been on Earth, Annabelle would have been assessing their surroundings for an escape, but in outer space, there was no way they could get anywhere. They best they could do now was wait and hope that what these robots were going to do to them wasn't too bad.

* * *

The fragin' little glitches wouldn't shut up!

Rumbletrain was already having a hard enough solar cycle as it was without the little fragers yakking away. It was always like this though, every time they picked some more of them up, all they did was cause problems. He couldn't imagine why anyone would actually take one willingly.

The only good thing about them was that there were a lot of them, and they brought in a lot of business. Swindle was sure happy to have them around. They were credits in the salesmech's optics.

They didn't get as many young ones as they would have liked, but beggars can't be choosers.

It had been a long and tedious ride, but shorter than it was before they got the space bridge up and running. There were almost there now. In a few clicks they would be able to load the little pests off on the stores mech that had ordered them.

It was a new store he ran. He opened it when he heard that they were rescuing the little critters from a dying world, and that they didn't have the intelligence to save or take care of themselves.

The fact that the stupid do-gooder actually believed that proved how dumb he was. That was how they got a lot of bots like him for keeping the little creatures as pets.

"Hey Rumbletrain! Quit standing around and help me with these guys."

It was the same routine every time. Get them transported, take them to their offices to get them into the proper clothing, and ship them to the stores. They had learnt that it was better to put them into material that all looked the same when some bot had started questioning all the different styles, wondering if the little critters came up with them themselves. Something like that was just too smart for how dumb they were trying to pass the little guys off as.

Making the creatures do what they wanted wasn't difficult. All they had to do was show them what they wanted, and then point a gun at them if they didn't do it. Despite what all of Cybertron believed, the little creatures weren't stupid, they were crafty, and they learned stuff. If you weren't careful around them, they would try to pull one over on you.

Rumbletrain had once made the mistake of taking apart his gun and putting it back together in front of one of them. He left it on the table right beside the little thing, turning around for a nanoclick, and when he turned back to grab it, he got shot in the servo.

He never underestimated one of them again, especially the really big ones.

When they finally got through everything, and made it to the store, Rumbletrain was about ready to just shoot the fragers. He was happy to get rid of them, and his boss was happy with a subspace full of credits.

* * *

Annabelle was about ready to start banging her head against the wall to knock herself out just so she wouldn't have to put up with it anymore. After getting out of the small cages, after who knew how long, they had been shuffled off to change from their clothes into simple tops and pants, that came in a faded greyish green colour. Roxy had just about snapped but Annabelle kept her under control, telling her it wasn't worth it; not for clothes. Roxy had grumbled on about how it wasn't about the clothes, but changed anyways.

Now they were stuffed back into the cages and transported to some place where they were put in a tank by a robot she hadn't seen before. This one had blue optics, and it didn't look quite as horrible as the others. In comparison to human culture, she would say that the ones that had captured her looked like the stereotypical biker gangs. While the one they were with now obviously wasn't built for war like the other ones. So what was its purpose?

The other people seemed to have calmed down a bit at least. Maybe she could, well, do something. Assess the situation better maybe? She wasn't really too sure what she could do right now. She was hoping it would come to her though. It would be better to do something rather than nothing.

"It's coming back," whispered one woman, nearest to the door.

Everyone in the tank went silent, watching the door slide open for the robot, who came in with some sort of tray. It opened the lid of the tank and started putting boxes inside. After it was finished, it went to the male's tank.

Annabelle, Roxy, and a few others went to investigate the boxes. They held some sort of mush in them. What were they supposed to do with that?

"It's food," a male voice from the other tank said.

"Oh, great," Roxy said as she slumped on the floor. "They sure go all out for us, don't they? It's a 5 star hotel."

"What if it's poisoned?" said a woman with red hair.

"Oh yeah, because they would go to all the trouble of getting us here, and changing our clothes just to poison us," said a Japanese girl with long black hair.

"Well, we can't just starve ourselves. It's not like we have a chance of escaping," said a blonde woman.

"What about you guys?" the red head turned to Annabelle and Roxy, "Do you know anything about them? Does the government have a plan to rescue us?"

"At this point, I am afraid we don't know much more about this than you do. And she's right, we don't have any chance of escaping if we're on a different planet. We have only just started traveling to other planets in our solar system, and I don't think this is a planet in our solar system," explained Annabelle.

Murmurs rippled through the crowd, and Roxy nudged her. "I think now would be a good time to go find out what happened to the rest of our team." Annabelle nodded and they both made their way over to the side of the tank.

They spotted one of their comrades. Fred Epps was sitting at the edge of the tank.

"Oh my God, Fred! I am so glad you're alright," Annabelle said sounding completely relieved.

"Annabelle! Roxy!" he turned around. "Hey Carlin, Brad! Get your asses over here!"

"Carlin and Brad are here! What about the others?" asked Roxy.

Fred shook his head.

"Roxy! Annabelle! Good to see you're both alright," Brad smiled.

"As good as you can be...here," Carlin said as he elbowed Brad in the ribs.

"Are we sure that the others are dead? Maybe they were just unconscious and the robots didn't bother with them," Roxy looked hopeful.

Annabelle found herself shaking her head. "We can only hope."

* * *

A/N: I would just like to let you know that Fred Epps is not an oc of mine. He is canon to the Transforms comics, he just never made it into the movies.

I would just like to point out that I love reviews. I mean I practically feed off of them, so the more reviews I get the more driven I will be to write.

Thanks for stopping by,

~Mel~


	3. Downward spiral

Chapter 2

Hope was something that was beginning to get hard to hold on to. For days, they just sat in the tanks, not really doing much of anything. Annabelle and her team spent a great deal of time right at the side of the tanks, so they could stay close to each other.

Over the days, different robots had come in to look at them. Like humans, they were all different shapes, colours and sizes. Annabelle even thought they showed signs of having personalities, like living beings. But she kept those thoughts to herself, even though she suspected her comrades suspected the same thing.

It was a lot easier to think of the robots as just that, robots. Inanimate objects that were being controlled by something else, something easier to kill. They could find whatever controlled the robots, shut them down, and then find the aliens that built them, and hopefully destroy them. Hopefully was the operative word. The species were obviously centuries ahead of humans in the technology department, so how were the humans supposed to beat them?

Annabelle didn't really have much hope at all. She could tell that with each passing day, more and more people were losing it as well.

It had started with the little girl and her mother. The girl spent a great deal of time clinging to her mother, too afraid to let go after they lost her father. Annabelle had reason to believe he had been killed in the attack.

Then the first wave of customers came in. One of the robots took an interest in the little girl. It was a horrible sight.

The little girl screamed in terror as the giant pried her away from her mother. Annabelle couldn't get the image of the crying girl and woman out of her head. It was so cruel. The girl was about eight, so she was self-sufficient, but still far too young to be ripped away from her mother.

The robot with the red optics stuck the little girl into the carrying case, leaving the mother wailing on the floor, pounding on the side of the tank.

The store bot with the blue optics almost looked like it wanted to protest, but was obviously intimidated by the customer. That was when Annabelle first became suspicions of the optic colours.

Ever since then, more humans had been taken from the two tanks. Luckily, none of Annabelle's squad had been taken. They had known from the start that being as fit as they were would make them prime specimens. Whenever a robot was nearby, they would flop over, and try to look as miserably weak and boring as possible.

They weren't getting any closer to a plan or gathering any information they needed by doing this, but they did it anyway, mostly to prolong their time together. When they got separated, it was most likely they would never see each other again.

"Looks like another one is coming in."

Annabelle looked up at Fred, and then in the direction that he was looking at to see a large silver robot had just entered the store. It hadn't just entered either, it had rolled in. It had wheels on its feet. She couldn't decide if that was convenient or weird.

Everyone became silent. They all looked down, trying to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible.

Like all the others before it, it bent down and studied them for a bit, going back and forth between the males and females. It had blue optics, and Annabelle wondered if this one would be better than the others.

It tapped the glass.

Okay, maybe she was misjudging it.

It tapped the glass harder.

Yep, defiantly misjudged that one.

It then moved its servos, to the sections of the glass nearest to the group, one servo on the female tank, one on the males, and knocked.

This got a reaction from one girl in particular. Roxy would have gotten up, if it weren't for Annabelle holding her down, and the fact that another girl beat her to it.

"WHAT! What the hell do you want!" It was the Japanese girl. She looked to be about 18, with eyes that were such a deep blue, they looked almost purple. She marched over to the glass in front of the robot's face. "What! Do you think this is funny, a big game?" she then pounded her fist on the glass. "Tap, tap tap!" she yelled at him as she pounded the glass. "HA HA HA! So hilarious right?"

The girl, she thought her name to be Loren or something, looked downright pissed. She actually looked quite scary when angered.

This seemed to be the lively reaction the robot was looking for, because it suddenly got really excited, if robots could get excited, and started tapping on the glass again.

The girl pounded on the glass again out of anger, not being able to do more. The robot turned to the sales robot and started making the weird clicking noises they had assumed was their language, while pointing at the girl.

The girl suddenly realised her mistake when the lid was lifted and the robot's servo came at her. She tried to dodge it, but the excited robot was too fast and got hold of her, and pulled her up. All the while she was cursing her head off at it, and pounding at the hand that held her.

The robot cradled the struggling girl against his chassis and started petting her hair. If Annabelle hadn't known any better, she would have thought that it was acting like a kid getting a new puppy.

The two robots then walked out the door into the front area of the store, which they had learned was where all the care supplies were stocked.

Annabelle was almost sad to see the girl go. She had been smart and didn't take any crap, a lot like Roxy, but a bit calmer when not angered.

"Well jeez, that was a mistake," Brad said, "If she keeps that up, it's going to kill her."

The group of soldiers were sitting in their usual spot, close together at the side of their tanks.

"And you call being someone's pet 'living'?" Roxy glared at Brad through the glass.

"No, but there's still hope. We just need a plan."

Roxy shook her head at him. "Shut up Bradley." Throwing Brad a glare, Roxy got up and walked to the other side of the tank, away from the men's tank. Brad looked a little crestfallen.

"Hey, don't take it to personally Brad, we're all a little shaken, and Roxy's such a free bird. This must be eating her up inside," Carlin tried comforting the shaggy haired brunet man.

Bradley just turned away from the clean-cut blond and continued to stare at Roxy longingly.

Fred motioned for Annabelle to follow him over to the corner that was against the wall. They both made it to the other corner at the back and slid down in them, with their heads against the glass, as close as they could get with the few feet between them.

Fred and Annabelle had been friends since they were babies, with their fathers being best friends and all. Fred was the youngest and only boy of the five children Robert Epps and his wife Monique had. He had been born only a year before Annabelle, so the two of them had been close.

Fred looked a lot like his father, but he had his mothers hazy green eyes, and instead of shaving his head bald, he left just enough hair for it to be considered a buzz cut.

"Poor guy doesn't stand a chance in hell with her," Fred muttered just loud enough for her to hear him.

Annabelle smirked. "Yeah well maybe someday, if we ever get out of here." And the conversation was over before it even began. That seemed to be happening a lot lately. Somehow it would always turn back to their capture.

"We gotta come up with something Anna, or else this'll keep happen'en till there no more free people left for 'em to take."

"First we have to determine who's controlling them," Annabelle paused, "...but, to be honest, I'm not so sure there being controlled by anyone."

There was a pregnant pause. Neither one of them had to say just how bad it would be if the robots really were the ones they were fighting against.

Fred finally spoke. "Alright then, we gotta figure out how their system works. Do they have some type of government, or do they just program in the next leader that's in line," he snickered.

"This ain't no time for jokes!" Both their heads snapped up to see Roxy coming over to them. "I've been watching them, not just what they do, but their body language." She sat down beside Annabelle. "Whenever some of the consumers get to poking around too much, the manager, or whatever you wanna call it, starts watching 'em real close."

"Yeah, so?" Carlin and Brad had come over

"So, it's watching them for theft."

The revelation told them a lot more information than they ever wanted to know. Annabelle realised, along with the others, that her theory of them having different personalities could very well be true.

"It could just be a regular function, don't worry," Carlin pointed out.

"I think it's time we stop fooling ourselves, we've all been watching them, they act like us," Roxy seemed determined to make progress, and she was right, they had to get somewhere.

"She's right," Annabelle stated, "at this point we can't rule anything out. We have to gather as much information on these things as possible." She stopped. Everyone knew what was coming next, though they didn't want to say it. Saying it out loud would make it final. It would meant they would finally have to make a move. "We can't do that from in here," she finished.

There was a long silence.

"Well, how are we going to get back in touch?" Brad asked.

"We don't." It was no surprise that it was Carlin who said it. The logical man never beat around the bush when it came right down to it.

"We could come across each other again, but it would be a long time in waiting, so in the meantime, we would be doing it solo. We need to gather any info, and think of something we can do to help the people that are here, or stop the robots from getting more," Annabelle looked around at the group. "If we are going to get taken, I would prefer it if they weren't the ones with the red optics."

"So you noticed the pattern too," Fred exclaimed.

"Was kinda hard to miss," Roxy put in.

"Well at least one of us should get taken by one of the ones with the red optics. The reds were the ones that captured us, and all the reports on Earth said robots with red eyes. So something tells me that they are more involved with shipping humans here than the blues," Carlin said.

"There aren't that many that come through here. I wonder if it's a society thing. Like you know, the way coloured people used to be treated."

"Stop being stupid Brad," Roxy said, raising her arm to smack him in the head, then lowering it when she remembered the glass. "They're robots, they can change anything about their body that they like. It would be more like clothes, tattoos or even a uniform."

"She's probably right about that," Fred told Brad.

"It's too bad we can't make up a solid plan. I hate just making it up as we go along," Carlin said.

"Well, that's as good as it's gonna get man," sighed Fred.

"Well anything is better than just letting them keep us as pets," Roxy muttered darkly.

Annabelle was a bit worried about her. Roxy wasn't the type to just lie down and get told how to live her life. She was sure Roxy could handle herself though; she was a strong girl.

"All right then, when we get taken, we need to gather as much information as possible, and then we should just pass it on to any humans we come into contact with, and tell them to pass it on. It's the only means of knowledge we have, so we're just going to have to make the best of it," Annabelle announced confidently.

Having a place to start seemed to help lift her spirits a little bit. Annabelle felt better knowing that she was going to be doing something rather than just nothing, and for right now, that was enough for her.

* * *

Being treated with care was not enough for Lori Suzuki.

Since being '_bought_' from the store, she had been locked in a tiny cage, a pet carrier was what it was, and had been constantly poked and prodded at since her and the robot got '_home_.' It was annoying to say the least.

They had gone into what looked like an apartment building, and gone up several floors, or what she assumed to be several, it was so big it didn't make a big difference to her. The silver robot had rolled into his home, and set her down on the floor in the middle of the first big room they came into. He left for a few minutes, and Lori considered trying to open the cage. It probably wouldn't be to hard considering the robots thought they were too stupid to know how to do anything beyond basic instincts. She decided against it though, it would be smarter to let it think she was dumb for now.

The robot came back quickly and knelt down and opened the front of the cage. It looked like it was going to reach in and grab her, so she sprinted out before it could. That thing was way too grabby for her taste. It responded by laying its arm down in the ground in front of her to block her from running off.

"Wow, you're stupid," she told it, even though she was well aware that it couldn't understand her. It did stop moving to stare at her intently though. "What? Why are you looking at me like that? What do you want?" It shifted and moved its head closer to her. Oh joy, it was excited to see her talking.

This thing obviously wasn't used to being around humans and anything that she did would probably pique its curiosity.

She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him. There was a long silence. Neither of them moved for a minute.

The robot started shifting again. So it was impatient, looking for entertainment from her. Oh shit. If she were comparing it to a person, she would say he was like a child that was always looking for something new and interesting. This meant that it would probably get bored of her eventually. What would happen then?

Oh well, it wasn't like she cared at all. It was just some stupid robot that was holding her prisoner. The sooner it lost interest in her, the sooner she could work on escaping. But escape to where exactly?

That thought sparked what she had been holding in for the last few days. She was so far from not only home, but from everything she new. She suddenly wanted her mother, but she was dead, got killed in all the chaos when the robots attacked. Now all she had was the lively machine in front of her.

Lori's chest tightened, and she felt the familiar burning in her eyes that meant tears were coming.

She quickly turned her back to the robot, clutching her chest. It was an automatic response, even though she knew he wouldn't know what her crying meant. Her frame started to shake a little, and she sank to the ground. She fought to not let out a sound, pressing her lips firmly together. Though her eyes were squeezed shut, she heard her captor move around to look at her face. She opened her eyes and looked at its blurry image through her soggy eyes. It stared at her for a second, then it reached out to poke her.

She slapped its finger away angrily. It probably wasn't the best move, but it made her feel better to let some of her anger out.

It didn't seem upset by her reaction though. It seemed that if anything, she got the robot all excited again and it would come back for more. Maybe she should play dead?

That thought flew out the window as soon as it tried to poke her again. Their battle continued until the sound of footsteps came into the room. The silver robot looked excited and began making a bunch of computer-like sounds while making wild gestures at her.

Lori turned around to look at the newcomer. This one was gold. How cliché.

It didn't have wheels on its feet like the silver one, but it did have some very big ears on the side of its head. The shape of them actually reminded her of fish fins. At that moment, her crying suddenly turned into hysterical laughter.

She fell to her knees laughing and clutching her stomach. It felt like forever since she last laughed, and now that she was, she couldn't seem to stop.

The golden one tilted its head in a considering manner before saying something to the silver one and walking out of the room.

The silver one just leaned in to poke her again.

* * *

It was one of the worst feelings Annabelle had ever had to experience. That moment when they all held their breath, wondering who would be chosen, and if they wanted to be chosen. Annabelle was sure that some of them did after spending so much time in the tanks.

She couldn't fathom how being taken could amount to anything. She supposed people just wanted something to happen. But if they were taken, then that would mean they would only be taken to another location to probably end up in another tank alone. At least here they had human contact.

And it finally did happen; one by one they were taken. Fred was the first to go. It was one of the red eye ones. Carlin had lost his hope with Fred that day. He was the next one taken, and thankfully by one of the blue eye ones. She wasn't sure Carlin would survive with one of the red ones.

Bradley still sulked around as close as he dared to Roxy. She had taken to driving everyone away by glaring. It seemed her miserable attitude may have reached the customers because they left her alone.

Annabelle still made a show of being weak and boring. She felt the overpowering need to stay with her squadron till she was the last one.

When Brad had been taken, it had been a heartbreaking sight. It seemed to be one of the nicer ones, but Brad hadn't liked going with it anyways. At the last moment he had stretched his arm out in their direction with such desperation written on his face it had made Annabelle want to cry. Though he had not been looking at her, Roxy had her head turned away.

And then it was just the two of them with few other girls. Roxy became even more closed off than she already was. She pushed herself into the corner near where Brad used to sit and only left when the need for food became too much.

A new shipment came in. It was much the same as before; lots of crying, lots of confusion, and a lot of anger.

Annabelle did her best to help the girls, and in the end, that was probably what got her noticed.

* * *

A/N: Something I forgot to say last time is that the 'pet' idea isn't really all mine. There are a bunch of other stories with the same base, though I don't know vary many of them. "Property of" is the only one I can think of right now.

Normally, before I find fics, I think up ideas for what I want to read, and then try to find one that fits that description, problem is I really can't remember if I came up with this idea before, or after I read a fic like this. So I'm not making any claim on it.

Thanks for reading and please take the time to leave a review.

~Mel~


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